Month: February 2018

Having recently done a few multi-day solo tramping trips I’ve gotten reasonably good at throwing together a menu that keeps me going, doesn’t cost the earth and tastes decent. I thought I’d use my recent Travers Sabine trip as an example.

A few other things I try and keep in mind:

If I’m travelling around a bit in the car before starting a trip, I won’t bring stuff that might go off without refrigeration for a few days (eg. cheese).

This menu is for one person. I might plan a similar menu (just with double the quantity) for two people, but for larger groups it would make sense to use fewer pre-packed meals and use more raw ingredients. Lentil-based meals are a great option for larger groups.

To conserve gas, I prefer meals/ingredients that don’t have long cooking times. Couscous requires much less cooking than rice for example (although I think rice tastes better so I’ll do that when in a hut where gas is provided ;).

Here’s the food I took for 5 nights / 5(ish) days on the Travers Sabine:

Here’s how that breaks down:

Breakfasts

Oatmeal (1/2 cup per morning) – combine with 1 1/4 cups water and as much milk powder as you like (maybe 1/4 cup).

Cinnamon/nutmeg mix and brown sugar to go on oatmeal.

Coffee

Snacks

Muesli bars

Whittakers peanut slabs

Scroggin/nut mix – I like the Pams Super Foods range – also good to sprinkle a bit of this on oatmeal at breakfast.

Olives

Energy balls (often I make these at home)

Gingernuts

Lunches

2 days – crackers with chutney and salami

3 days – Sealord tuna sachet and crackers

Pre/post dinner snacks

Tea

Cup-a-soup

Chocolate

Dinners

Indian MTR meal with 1/2 cup couscous – these meals are super tasty and cheap ($3.50 from Pak ‘N Save) but are not dehydrated so are a bit heavy. I tend to have them just on the first night.